Checking out

Checking out ( starting over in a world run by money)

I once had a teacher tell me that so long as you are climbing someone elses ladder you have to do it their way and you will never be the one on top because its their ladder. The only way to really achieve something is to make your own ladder.

It may seem spontaneous, irresponsible call it what you will.

The one thing that people let run their lives and forget to question is money. Some people have it. Some people don’t have hardly any. Everyone seems to have a different relationship with it and yet there is a thread that runs through all of us in how we think of money. We all want more of it. We all get trapped within the cycle of getting money. Wanting more money. Buying things. Then buying things on credit, and finally working to pay off the things you bought all the while buying more things on credit. Until ultimately you aren’t even working for yourself anymore or the things you want. You are working for your credit cards. You are working to pay their fees and interest. Wondering how this happened. And you have to keep the job you have and try increasingly hard to make more and more money just to keep up with the bills. Is this life? Is this what we all looked forward to through the young innocent eyes of our past into our future. Did we really only want the house, the car, or the flat screen tv? Did we all cash in and condemn ourselves to the rat race for “things”? The more you get,..the more you have…the more you want. I don’t think you can call it greed exactly. It seems to be at the core of human nature. A striving toward something is the very thing that drives us. The very thing that pushes us forward and makes us accomplish things. But capitalism has convenced us all that we don’t want simply to make personal accomplishments unless we can show them off but the things we were able to acquire.

Somewhere along the way things were twisted. I have only lived in America so I can only speak as a girl in her late 20s in America. Although ,I suspect there are many similarities across the world, it does seem that America has become a very severe microcosm of the world and human nature as a whole .

I grew up poor. Lots of people do grow up this way and looking back we were beyond poor really. To imgine taking myself out of what I have now a being thrust into that same situation revisited Im not sure if I could do it. I don’t know how my mom did it. What a different world that would be.

(When you are very young you don’t really notice money or things. You are far too wrapped up in your own world enjoying it for what it is and not noticeing who has what and who does not. At least that’s what I remember from it. )

When I turned eight we moved into a new house. “new” being that it was once a small store in a residential area of Bakersfield California, delapitated but somewhat modified into a small one story house

My mom took it much harder then us. Less because she wanted “things” for herself but as I imagine all parents much feel they want these things for their children. They want to give them all they can and want the best life possible for them. And in this world of money that usually means things.

We were kids. We knew no better; no different. We simply were. And we made due with what we had without a second thought. We had imagination and could be anywhere and have anything we wanted. But as you get older you vision begins to include that which others have and more importantly, more noticeably, that which you do not. And its in this thought or knowledge which grows this lack of fullfillment and blossoms into a tree In a garden whose apples you cant resist. We learn quite definitively that if we don’t have what someone else has then we are defiecent in some way or another rather then realizing its not what we don’t have, not what others do have, but its that which we do with whatever we have.

But is it possible to check out? To start out in your own way in a system run by money. Is it possible to stop wanting?

i just think this is funny

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DzSgiXGELjbc&h=765ec2d3fdda206b3dc98ddb246e8dd3&ref=nf

The stats

The Stats

“Approximately 31,655 individuals complete suicide each year…that’s 86.7 people each day…one person approximately every 17.2 minutes.”

I remember watching the clock, gazing up dramatically with teenage eyes each 17min or so marking each persons passing like my own small memorial to their death.

I read on through an article devoted to the subject and noticed how it refered to each suicide as a completed suicide. “Women are more likely to attempt suicide but men are more likely to complete it.”

…Like the rest of us just havent finised yet.

I read on...” Note that a firearm is, by far, the most common method for suicide. (55% of all suicides are committed with a firearm.) Thus it is imperative that a suicidal person not have access to a firearm. If you know someone who is suicidal and owns a gun, call 911 immediately...” I would never use a gun. Too messy. An expected death should be beautiful.

“Hanging (or suffocation) is used in about one out of five suicides, which is why you can never leave an acutely suicidal person alone for even a second. People who have died by hanging have used virtually every conceivable thing to hang themselves with, such as electric cords, belts, sheets, etc. Again, never leave an acutely suicidal person alone…” I imagined all the things made of string and rope and cordes that someone might hang themselves with. Seemed comical almost. I pictured some random person with leagions of rope and string around their necks hanging limply from a celealing fan, or rafter or some other steady object.

“Poisoning accounts for slightly less than one out of five suicides. It is very easy for a suicidal person to obtain over the counter drugs and then overdose on them, especially when the drugs are combined with alcohol.” I think this one would be more my style. Much easier to make the decision when your mind and inhibitions are at bay.

Because drugs could be hidden virtually anywhere, you need to get immediate help for someone who is acutely suicidal.”

“The three most common methods of suicide – firearms, hanging, and poisoning – account for 92.3% of all suicides.”

“Although many believe that jumping off a building (or falling) is a common suicide method (because when it happens there usually is a lot of news coverage about it), in actuality only about 2% of all suicides occur by this method…”

Jumping from a building is something ive thought of nearly everytime Ive looked down from a tall building. Like a foreign impulse realesd from somewhere within. Peering ever so interested over the edge. Afraid and yet eager. Everytime Ive looked out off a high bridge the same thoughts came to mind… but Im not sure if I could. It would be easy in a way I suppose. One last step and there is literally no turning back. Although I imagine those last few seconds before hitting the pavement would be an histeria ending in blackness.

And my favorite is that more people die from suicide each year than homicide. We are much more apt to take are own lives than the lives of others. I thought about that for awhile. Its funny really and true.

I thought of all the times in my life when i watched out for strangers or double checked a locked door at night. Or imagined someone hiding in the house ready to attack once they thought I was asleep…just like villisca I imagined. Someone in the attic ready to murder everyone in the house with seemingly no reason at all.

I thought of all the anxiety that can cause a person contrasted with the beauty and ease of planning ones own end. Such a strange juxtaposition of vurtially the same thing. Death.

complete suicide

The sadest thing we as individuals will ever realize is that ultimately we are all alone and always will be…

The bathroom

The water was hot and sent lines of steam trailing up into the air. My red, freshly polished toes showing just above the water line. As if peaking out from the underneath..moist and warm.

The room was bathed in a golden candle light which pulsed and breathed with each eddie of air. It was so quiet. Not a sound at all. Like the world had breathed in and was holding its collective breath until the act was finished.

What is one to think in her last moments? I thought of crying but I wasnt sad so much as just detached. I thought of happiness. The emotion I hoped I would soon find if any emotion were to be found upon my death.

Thoughts went quickly at first and then slowly drifted through my mind and out the other side until I paid little attention to their content or meaning at all and they were just a soft distant murmer in the back of my head.

Things were getting a little softer around the edges as the pills efffects began to bleed into my sight. I held the razor and felt the coolness of its metal. I wasnt afraid. I pushed its perfectly pointed edge deep into my wrist watching the deep dark red first pool and then drip.

I had to do it quick. A moment of hesitation could be the difference between death and a trip to the mental hospital. In one quick motion I pulled its edge down my arm. I lay there watching the water become pink and then darken in to a beautiful rose red.

It started in my toes suprisingly. I watched their polish tips as they began to tingle and go numb and slide beneth the water. I felt the sensation crawl eagerly but slowly up my body. A noticeable vibration to the beat of my racing heart.

I was just an observer now. I wasnt even me. I was outside myself looking in. My sight grew more and more dull and then it faded all together. I thought at first it was the steam in my vision but the pills had made themselves known and the shock and loss of blood was finally setting in.

I didnt cry. I didnt evan say a word. Now my fingers and arms were buzzing with the draining of their life. Ohhh it felt sooo good. I was letting go; I was giving in. Nothing mattered except this wondereous sensation. My body was vibrating and I was fading and I closed my eyes and felt the sensation drift and pulse and steal me away.

engaging sadness

Sometimes sadness is an engaging uplifting pain that may hurt but purges your soul...